The only way it's possible for this to end up with a father marrying his own son is if it's currently possible for a father to marry his own daughter. Is that possible? Then you have bigger problems.

I never understood the movement to ban gay marriage "because it will lead to polygamy, incest, bestiality" blah blah. Write the law limiting marriage to two humans of consensual age, and optionally no blood relation within n-degrees.

ImpendingCynic:The only way it's possible for this to end up with a father marrying his own son is if it's currently possible for a father to marry his own daughter. Is that possible? Then you have bigger problems.

I never understood the movement to ban gay marriage "because it will lead to polygamy, incest, bestiality" blah blah. Write the law limiting marriage to two humans of consensual age, and optionally no blood relation within n-degrees.

Done. Was that so difficult?

Came here to say this but probably less coherently. Well done.

The comments prompt the inevitable question though. The actual argument raised was clearly rubbish, as ImpendingCynic has well demonstrated. This guy is both well educated and very experienced in politics. He's either senile or he's trying too hard to come up with something that sounds credible because his real fears about the legislation are undescribable.

My personal theory relates to the real winners and losers from marriage reform allowing gay marriage. The real winners are the relatively small number of gay folks wanting to marry. I have no reason to deny them this; I am a happily married heterosexual bloke in a marriage which, while raising a family of my wife's kids and grandkids, will never produce my own children and I'm cool with that. So the thought that marriage is all about procreating one's own genetics is meaningless in the context of my marriage. And yet no one objects to our situation. So I don't object to Adam and Steve celebrating their eternal love. And in response to the crap that the gays want to ruin marriage, marriage has long been ruined by heterosexual couples divorcing rather than take their vows seriously, so if your issue is that traditional marriage is under threat you've obviously never heard of The Kardashians. The fact is no one loses if gays marry.

No, that's not true.

The big losers are the probably millions of gay folks who've done "the right thing" and married heterosexually anyway because they can't admit who they are, and, let's face it, many communities wouldn't let them do this even if they were strong enough to be themselves. So they live a lie.

Adam and Steve getting married on their front lawn over the road from my place would be fine. I'd try to get an invite if I could. Because it is no threat to me or my marriage in any way, and celebrating loving relationships while dancing to decent dance music is a fine way to spend an evening.

But if I was gay and living a lie, it would be a disaster.

Now I'm not saying that every opponent of gay marriage is living their own lie. But I am saying that a hell of a lot of them know the real statistics about marriages that might be under threat when gay marriage is legalised. It's threatening only to those who are living a lie or those who would be embarrassed by members of their own religious and social communities taking the opportunity to own up to themselves and their families, come out and leave their wives (/beards).

My personal suspicion is that the Catholic church, with its focus on confession, is all too aware that many of its pillars are men who crave cock or their wives who crave pussy. They can't handle the truth or they wouldn't fear it as they so do.

If you're pro-family yet oppose gay marriage and thus deny the many children of parents in same-sex relationships the delight of seeing their parents marry their life partner, you're not pro-family at all. You're pathetic.

Gergesa:Does anyone recall the Stephen Colbert mocking of Jeremy Irons about this? It was hysterical. Funniest take I have ever seen done by him.

It is really depressing when a good actor comes out as a bigot - you would like to think inherently that the empathy needed to get in lots of other peoples shoes and bring their characters alive with enough integrity to make them believable would make it hard to be mindlessly and reflexively hateful and thoughtless on such topics, but I guess not.

ImpendingCynic:The only way it's possible for this to end up with a father marrying his own son is if it's currently possible for a father to marry his own daughter. Is that possible? Then you have bigger problems.

I never understood the movement to ban gay marriage "because it will lead to polygamy, incest, bestiality" blah blah. Write the law limiting marriage to two humans of consensual age, and optionally no blood relation within n-degrees.

CapeFearCadaver:jayhawk88: Yeah, like there's never been a gay or lesbian king or queen on the throne of England before *eyeroll*

They hid that sh*t properly though... by "marrying" someone of the opposite sex... and having fun with their entourage. See? You can do what you want, as long as you "marry" the proper person as God prescribes.

I find it fascinating that the opponents of equality have no coherent arguments against marriage equality itself. All they have are objections to ridiculous straw men that they're afraid that marriage equality might somehow lead to -- including "undermining traditional marriage", whatever that means.

phalamir:the former Cabinet minister even warned that same-sex marriage legislation could see a lesbian queen on the throne

As an American, I hate to have to a Brit, but: the Act of Settlement contains a relentlessly deterministic mechanism for deciding who exactly is the next person in line to sit on the throne - if the correct conditions are met, a 35 stone, tattooed, bull-dyke she-beast with enough piercings to make metal detectors go off for miles around, dragging a virtual BDSM harem along behind her in chains would be the next monarch under current British law, and no one could do a goddamn thing about it.

The nonsense about marrying his son and people avoiding inheritance taxes is just more of the usual desperation from a bigot. And, if he's just trying to use hyperbole to make the point that changes to the law need to be carefully considered, then it's almost forgivable.

But the stuff about a "lesbian queen" just baffles me. Of everything in the world that could possibly happen, THIS is one of the major scenarios that he's most concerned with? Does he sit up at night writing royal family erotic fan fiction or something?

Besides being the rantings of an angry old man who wants to marry his son, the potential of a lesbian queen is not even a current issue. Unless there's some sort of hilarious "King Ralph"-style accident, the first four people in line to the throne are heterosexual males, three of whom are already married and have children (or a baby on the way). Of the next several people in line, there are a bunch of children, a few more married men, and a couple of old ladies. The only real potential lesbian queens within the next couple of decades are Beatrice or Eugenie. So, if Tebbit has done any actual thinking about this scenario of his, he's basically saying that he thinks Beatrice and/or Eugenie are gay. They're both cute, so I can forgive him for thinking about this, but he's still a dirty old man.

WoodenNickel:He won't HAVE to marry his son, but why shouldn't he be allowed to marry his son? Just because you think it's icky? Men are not allowed to marry their daughter or sister because their kids would have flippers. But there's not much danger of that in a homosexual marriage. So why shouldn't they be able to marry? What about old spinster sisters living together? If they could marry, it would help them out financially, with inheritance, with end-of-life decisions, etc.

The flipper thing isn't a justification either. Not unless we're gonna ban men's jeans and steralize people over 35.

When we have a queen who is a lesbian and she marries another lady and then decides she would like to have a child and someone donates sperm and she gives birth to a child, is that child heir to the throne?

Yes. Agin, current British law is completely unambiguous on this point

ImpendingCynic:The only way it's possible for this to end up with a father marrying his own son is if it's currently possible for a father to marry his own daughter. Is that possible? Then you have bigger problems.

I never understood the movement to ban gay marriage "because it will lead to polygamy, incest, bestiality" blah blah. Write the law limiting marriage to two humans of consensual age, and optionally no blood relation within n-degrees.

Done. Was that so difficult?

The greatest danger, and one we Torries are altogether opposed to, is the further loosening of the public morals that have shielded the Kingdom through the darkest of days. The grand old Anglican values of propriety, prudence, honour, and duty stand threatened by this most pernicious creep of base turpitude. When Hitler was bombing London, and the bread lines stretched for miles during the lulls between the ghastly explosions, from Tooting High Street to Piccadilly we stood firm in the knowledge that no one of us cowering in the rubble would stoop to such strange and depraved behaviour as to ask his own son to marry him! By the Queen's honour, with what fantastical perversions will Labour bedevil us next, I ask?

jayhawk88:Yeah, like there's never been a gay or lesbian king or queen on the throne of England before *eyeroll*

They hid that sh*t properly though... by "marrying" someone of the opposite sex... and having fun with their entourage. See? You can do what you want, as long as you "marry" the proper person as God prescribes.

"In a blistering, foul-mouthed rant, the former Cabinet minister said the Prime Minister had "f****d things up"

If I'm ever mentioned in a news piece, I'd like the pharse "in a blistering, foul-mouthed rant" to be part of it.

"Thanks for the weather, Pat. And this from closer to home: Local yob, Louisiana_Sitar_Club, made known his intent to donate half his annual salary to Habitat for Humanity in a blistering foul-mouthed rant."